Professional Development
Effective, Sustained Inquiry-Based Instruction Promotes Higher Science Proficiency Among All Groups: A 5-Year Analysis
Student’s performance in science classrooms has continued to languish throughout the USA. Even though proficiency rates on national tests such as National Assessment of Educational Progress are higher for Caucasian students than African-Americans and Hispanics, all groups lack achieving desired proficiency rates. Further, the Next Generation Science Standards detail a new higher benchmark for all students.
Design Practices of Preservice Elementary Teachers in an Integrated Engineering and Literature Experience
The incorporation of engineering practices and core ideas into the Next Generation Science Standards at the elementary school level provides exciting opportunities but also raises important questions about the preparation of new elementary teachers. Both the teacher education and engineering education communities have a limited literature base on the resources that novice elementary teachers bring to learning and teaching engineering.
Examining discourse of a team of pre-service teachers within an IEL engineering design challenge
Examining Young Students’ Problem Scoping in Engineering Design
Problem scoping—determining the nature and boundaries of a problem—is an essential aspect of the engineering design process. Some studies from engineering education suggest that beginning students tend to skip problem scoping or oversimplify a problem. However, the ways these studies often characterize students’ problem scoping often do not reflect the complexity found in experts’ designing and rely on the number of criteria a student mentions or the time spent problem scoping.
Exploring students' problem solving within an integrated engineering and literacy activity
CAREER: Investigating Middle and Secondary Mathematics Teachers' Transformative Learning of Statistics Within Professional Development
CAREER: Community-Based Engineering as a Learning and Teaching Strategy for Pre-service Urban Elementary Teachers
CAREER: Creating Effective, Sustainable Inquiry-Based Instruction in Middle School Science Classrooms
Early Career Researchers and Developers in the DR K–12 Program: Needs, Supports, and Recommendations
The future strength of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) K-12 education research and development efforts depends in part on the development of promising early career researchers and developers—including doctoral students, post-docs, and first time principal investigators (PIs)—who can grow into R&D leaders and form an impactful R&D workforce. Unfortunately, there is little written on the needs and supports related to early career professional growth in the NSF’s Discovery Research K-12 program (DR K-12). Early career researchers and developers in the program have not been as
The future strength of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) K-12 education research and development efforts depends in part on the development of promising early career researchers and developers—including doctoral students, post-docs, and first time principal investigators (PIs)—who can grow into R&D leaders and form an impactful R&D workforce. This brief promotes deliberation on how to improve support and guidance for early career researchers and developers in the DR K-12 program, as well as in the broader field of STEM education R&D.
Student Materials, Professional Development, and Assessment Organized Around Habits of Mind in the CCSSM
Learn about three projects centered on algebraic habits of mind: a puzzle-centric curriculum for middle school and at-risk algebra students, professional development on the Standards for Mathematical Practice, and an assessment for teachers.
Algebraic habits of mind, at the core of five of the Standards for Mathematical Practice, become both a potent and appealing intervention for at-risk algebra students and a solid prevention-model middle-school course either to accelerate algebra or to ensure success in a later algebra course. The session focuses on the habits of mind in that context, in related professional development work that addresses the Standards for Mathematical Practices, and on assessment of algebraic habits of mind in teachers.
Using Life Cycle Data to Help Teachers Understand Key Energy Concepts
Participants engage in and provide feedback on digital interactive learning experiences that use National Renewable Energy Laboratory life cycle data and help teachers understand key energy concepts. Please bring your laptop.
Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) and project partners are developing an online course for high school science teachers. The purpose of the course is to help teachers understand key energy concepts in alternative energy contexts. The course includes three interactive learning experiences (interactives) that use life cycle data from the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL).